Soft Recovery System Facility (Scat Gun)

The SCat Guns will be used to impart the severe launch conditions (setback up to PIMP+ 25% and other conditions unique to artillery, mortar and tank gun weapon systems) to developmental ammunition and their components. Current and future weapon requirements of increased range, high precision, high rates-of-fire, and sophisticated electronics (smart rounds), have a direct impact on ammunition development and evaluation. A means of subjecting these developmental designs to actual launch conditions (i.e. high accelerations and spin) and then soft recover for physical inspection, bench tests and evaluation are critical to the designer/engineer. The SCat Gun provides the best and most cost effective method for analyzing these critical components in their representative, unmodified structure by subjecting them to the actual launch environment and then allowing for their recovery without damaging the projectile or payload at a low cost. Additionally, telemetry units can be fired, recovered and evaluated prior to actual proving ground test round firings. This will ensure all data is recorded, stored and/or transmitted back to the ground station during one-of-a-kind type tests. Significant cost savings can be realized on these unique evaluation programs, since every round will produce valid data, thereby reducing the number of proving ground firings needed for overall program development. By using the SCat Gun as an integral design aid, the development engineers will have a low cost, powerful evaluation technique where performance information can be ascertained quickly, cheaply and most importantly, before substantial quantities of experimental test rounds are designed and fabricated. This leads to substantial developmental cost savings